1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to additive manufacturing and, in particular, to forming an optical device using additive manufacturing. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for forming an optical device having a lateral resolution below a selected threshold using additive manufacturing and a substrate having a treated surface.
2. Background
Additive manufacturing is becoming more frequently employed in various industries, including, but not limited to, the construction industry, the aerospace industry, the automotive industry, the biotech industry, and other types of industries. As used herein, “additive manufacturing” is the process of making a three-dimensional solid object by laying down drops of material to form one or more successive layers of material in different shapes based on a digital model of the solid object and under computer control. The most common form of additive manufacturing is three-dimensional (3D) printing.
Using three-dimensional printing to manufacture an object, such as a part for an aircraft, instead of traditional manufacturing techniques, may reduce the overall amount of time, effort, and expense related to manufacturing the part. However, in some cases, three-dimensional printing may be unable to achieve the desired level of fineness with respect to the lateral resolution needed for certain types of parts. As used herein, the “lateral resolution” of an object is the smallest linear separable and measurable feature of the object. The smaller the level of lateral resolution that is achievable by a three-dimensional printing process, the finer the features of the part than can be manufactured.
However, some currently available manufacturing processes that use three-dimensional printing may only be able to create features having lateral resolution of about 10 micrometers (μm) or larger. Certain types of parts may require finer features having a lateral resolution below, for example, without limitation, about 5 micrometers (μm). For example, without limitation, some types of optical waveguides, optical resonators, optical switchers, and other optical devices may require features having a lateral resolution of between about 1 micrometer and about 3 micrometers.
One solution may be to use three-dimensional printing to create larger optical devices having a larger resolution. However, these types of optical devices may be multi-mode and may have a lower level of performance than desired. Another solution may be to use one or more fibers having a diameter sufficiently small to achieve the desired level of lateral resolution, instead of three-dimensional printing, to form an optical device. However, using fiber may limit the shapes of optical devices that can be created and may be more difficult than desired. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.